Jack Clancy's Ten Notes

[K-Zu-Ziro]

[this is a solitary endeavour]

Jack Clancy's ginger and grey roughage dabbed his cheeks and chin with frank goodwill. So approachable was he, that the breeze spread piss scent of his clothes couldn't taint your encounter. Mornings, Monday to Saturday, he was sat on the footbridge over the River Lee. Sunday he was endearing himself to the Lord at St. Finbarr's Cathedral. His workday seat was an upturned fruit crate, the years broke the bite of harsh splinters. Between the stubby throb of his arthritic fingers he rattled the wooden spoons. Frenetic, the pain of his eighty years dribbled from the corner of his mouth as spittle and froth. Then, it went down to his chin. Toothless, slobbering and days numbered in bold, he clattered an Irish tune with additional thuds on the box seat. He'd been a wild rover for many's the year, and soon the young men would put him in the ground.

Sinead's pinwheel was in the shape and colour of a sunflower. Its spinning pistil bore the earthy brown of her own eyes. Together they formed a dandy triplet, the prettiest browns Eire had ever seen. She toddled with her mother's hand holding hers for dear life. With the drizzle's mild spite distant in her mind, she tugged her coat's hood back to see old Jack Clancy on the bridge. Ignoring the mucky soup passing below, they took their first steps onto the bridge. The little girl tugged her mother towards Cork's precious performer. "Mam, wow!" little Sinead said squeezing mam's hand. Mam, Aileen to everybody else, fumbled between the torn imitation leather of her dainty purse to pull out a chunky two euro coin. "Put it in the hat, will you, so," she said with pride. Generosity was a grand thing to teach she felt.

Mr Clancy's sky blue sparklers matched the baby girl's smile for beauty. They'd both remember the moment until death took it from them.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

Blossom Mulrooney baby boomed right out of the 1970s and whimpered once the 1980s had had their way. January the 21st, 1990 was the day she smiled "Adeus" to her Portuguese colleagues at the office of the leafiest corner of Santa Clara. Pollen and petals split in her thumb and forefinger. Bred for double blooms, the flowers were bound to be delicate. Her parents sealed her botanical whimsy with a birth certificate signature. Blossom was a family name, in a roundabout way. Her mother's maiden name had been Bloemenstraat, Dutch for flower street! Whenever wearied with worry, she crouched to pinch a flower or two. It was the only time she would steal. But the connection to the grandparents, taken when she was sixteen and eighteen, was instant. It made it worth it. Four years later she wouldn't remember it, but that day's sun dress and its beloved freckled complexion pinned a beautiful memory in a stranger's mind. Jesus, her red hair is perfect. They never spoke.

By 1994 Mulrooney was O'Loughlin and she'd traded one daft sounding Irish name for another. That's what her husband always joked, anyway. That job, the Santa Clara job, was her dream job. Friends became family over BLTs and coffees. She stayed at home, turned a hobby into a business and ruffled the bouncy curls of Jenny's chip off the old block hair--it was red like grandma's. "It's almost like your hair," she said of the red row of freshly blooming geranium cuttings she'd overwintered inside. The O'Loughlins swapped California's steady temperature for the positively seasonal swings of Burlington, Vermont. "Won't be too long before we can put them outside," she explained smiling. It was the 10th of May. She heard on the radio that John Wayne Gacy's sentence had been carried out. The state of Illinois executed the serial killer for the rape and murder of thirty three young men and boys. She turned the dial and pulled her daughter under her arm.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

Jules Jones, mother, and James Jones, son, were walking home from the latter's taxing day of colouring and cutting (with safety scissors, of course). School days were long, and the NES nestled under the little black and white TV in Jamie's bedroom was urging him homeward. They were about to cross the street to make the final turn, their semi-detached British council house was about to come into view. That's when single mum Jules spotted a friend of her parents' a little bit up the road. "Don't we cross here?" James asked within earshot of the family friend. Jules gently tugged her son along the way.

"Hiya Mrs Connor. How are you?" Jules asked of what seemed nothing more than the drab spectre of a hunched raincoat. Turning, the aged lady became a human, smiling with the wrinkles of a world war or two. "I'm fine dear, I'm fine. Are you alright?" she asked, sincere to the bone. She had sincere, but brittle, bones. Last month's fall and broken wrist were stout testament to that. "Yeah, I'm alright. Bloody Thatcher, eh?" in spite her bad nerves, Jules had the empathy needed to be a skilled small talker. "Aye," replied Mrs Connor, before continuing "How are your mum and dad doing?" Jules batted back with rapidity, "Fine, fine."

Following along politely was the ever impatient James Jones. "I remember when your mum had you!" tittered Mrs Connor. James tugged and tugged on mum's elastic arm. He just knew that today was going to be today, tonight was going to be the night. After watching He-Man on CITV, he was going to finally finish World 8 of Super Mario Brothers. Jules tried to temper her son's impatience with a discreet shove back. James furrowed his spoilt brow.

Finally, thought James, as the trio reached Mrs Connors house. They had gone a whole twenty minutes out of their way to accompany the dear old woman. Once Mrs Connor had closed her royal blue front door, Jules span to face James and admonished him.

"I am so ashamed of you." she said, pointedly.

"Why?" whined the child.

"We might be the only person Mrs Connor talks to today. She lives alone."

"So?"

"It's always nice to chat with the elderly, you never know how lonely they are or how long it's been since anybody even spoke to them."

Even though James was a thoroughly rotten brat, even he felt shame swell in his chest. Shame and a thick dose of melancholy. He didn't know the deep sadness he felt was melancholy. But it was. That memory stuck with him for the rest of his life. With it came a healthy fear of being alone. James grew into his mother's shoes, and never turned down the opportunity to engage in conversation. No matter how cripplingly awkward it made him feel.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

Mei's home hung like a wasp nest under the corner the footbridge linking the platforms at the Kagoshima-Chuo Station. Every centimetre was re-purposed, recycled, upcycled, handmade, sustainable, hip and put together with an Enya soundtrack. Her inspiration came from Nico Nico freebooted uploads of Youtube videos showing the growing trend for tiny houses amongst America's bearded homebrewers. A hatch opened and a ladder slid down with a metal on metal rattle. A thirty-something English teacher stepped down, freckled and winking at Officer Amano. Until the government made a final decision, the Prefectural Police kept a dutiful vigil. Following Mei came Charisma and Charm, her favourite English words. The names were given to her plump pair of Cardigan corgis! Charisma was a girl, and was a beguiling red merle. Her loyal husband, as Mei thought of him, was Charm--he was blue merle, of course. Their stubby legs stopped them from using the ladder like Mei had, so they had to be lowered in a wicker basket and pulley. Commuters put away their smartphones and bowed in tune with her arrival on the platform. The lady's determination had spawned a social media campaign to save her trespassing home. It was absolutely illegal. The petition to save woman and dogs was almost certain to be successful.

The 08:30 AM Hisatsu Orange Railway multiple electric unit train whirred effortlessly towards the station. Its front end made a cute face; two large windows left and right were its ample eyes, and a little window positioned a touch lower made for a button nose. As it lined up with the platform, its familiar livery was in full view. At first, most mistook it for a white base, but it was the slightest grey. A red stripe with the word Yamakataya printed down the middle ran along either flank of the train. Mei waited for the doors to open. She was, with utter intention, the last to step on the train. Charm and Charisma followed her, for this infraction she had gained permission from the railway administration. She wanted to stand in the doorway and stare back at her beloved abode. A carefully chaotic window box of wonder spilled colours down the dour brickwork of the utilitarian bridge. Petunias, pansies, lobelia and begonias bloomed beyond their bounds.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

Lullabies, piano played, tinkled in the drowsy vacuum of her sleepy head. When the work was done for the night, Beatriz would succumb to a thorough relaxation. She was getting sleepy, but the money on the table wouldn't count itself. Francisca, Constanza and Javiera--the night's waitresses--had made a lonely lady of tender Beatriz. Her brown eyes, black hair and brownish skin were a harmony of colours, the natural world had meant to be the complete beauty. Her palette even matched her mood. Beatriz managed Don Jorge's in Puerto Natales, Chile--a southern frontier town hanging onto Tierra del Fuego for dear life. She wiped the grease from her hands and slapped herself in the face. She had to wake up, count the cash and get it in the safe ready to take to the back in the morning. Slap. Slap.

200.

400.

600.

800.

1,000.

1,200.

She stopped counting a second and kicked the shoes off her throbbing feet.

1,400.

1,600.

1,800.

2,000.

2,200.

2,400.

Something was rattling in the back, Beatriz assumed it was Francisca. Quick wit and kindness made Francisca's incompetence a minor issue. She always forgot something. Usually it was her keys.

"¿Francisca?"

The interruption was waking Beatiz up. It was only when she saw the unseasonal Halloween mask paired with the jarring combination of orange and green of Cobresal's home strip that she realised she was being robbed. Her father had been a Cobresal FC fan. He was the only Cobresal fan in town, the team was from the desert at the northern tip of the country. Beatriz and her family moved to the southern tip of the country when dad lost his mining job. Scared, but focused by a jolt of adrenaline, Beatriz wondered why even wear a mask if you're going to wear one of the most conspicuous possible garments possible!? Nevertheless, she held her arms up. The money went and eighteen month's later the insurance company grabbed the tab.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

Musty and caked in cigarette smoke, poverty's distinct aroma could resurrect the monkey on his back. Christian thrift stores had a lot of great stuff, he enjoyed shopping there. But the smell, urgh the smell. As soon as the doors closed behind him, it brought back the days of baked beans and unpaid electric bills. His childhood. Long since gone, and replaced with a modicum of financial security. A bountiful success if measured by his boyhood peers. Insecurity stirred his need to tug at his t-shirt, kick his Skechers at each other, bite at the loose skin around his fingernails. "I should have shaved today," he whined to himself. It was the clothes that really terrified him; days dressed in threadbare jumpers and holey shoes very much a size too big made his schoolyard life as rough as it needed to be. It needed to motivate his eventual escape.

There were a bunch of kids checking out the old man clothes. "Thanks a lot, Macklemore you fucking dickhead," he mouthed to himself.

The book section rescued him from his penchant for wallowing in yesterday's melancholy. His wife was certain that trait came from his Irish grandparents. She weathered the "sad sack" days with the tolerance of a saint. The books! His kindle could never replace the feeling of turning the page. It was something he'd never admit out loud because he felt like it made him sound like a hipster. "It's just easier to go and see what they have," that was his usual excuse. It wasn't a complete lie. After scanning the spines with speed rather than accuracy, one old gardening book grabbed his attention. He flicked it open, it was from the 70s. Completing its purpose in life, a makeshift bookmark brought the manual's potential new owner to the last page of its previous owner. Page thirteen was hardly as interesting as the bookmark itself. It was a pressed and dried chrysanthemum. Not the dinky kind covered in flowers that you see for sale every Autumn. But rather one of the larger chrysanthemums, bred specifically for flower arrangements. Its colour had faded with the years, but the petals were as pretty as they were decades ago. The flower crumbled in his hand the second he touched it.

That day turned out to be a sad sack day. Even the book section had food for his miserable monkey.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

New York City's worst pizzeria lined its walls with filthy tapestries of leather and suede. The fabric in question dressed each greee-zeee driver while he or she leaned all slick on the loose ceramic and its grimy grout. Every pair of beady eyes waited, watching the order screen for three orders in the same neighbourhood to line up for a fat fucking tip triplet. There was a boy in one neighbourhood, he was just a ghost lost in that drunk's traffic dash. His dad tried to pull him out of the way, but instead he ended up watching the lights go out. That neighbourhood came up. And Leandro Boba, a São Paulo illegal, bounced off the load bearer and signed out all three orders. BILLS TO PAY. His insulating bag was stuffed like a Christmas stocking, to the brim, brim, brim! He bolted through the door to meet the boy's spectre in the rain slicked mirrors.

A slice of tomato slid from the tarnished metal counter and slapped the floor below. After eagle eyeing for customers, the shift manager scooped up the floor "fruit" and put it back on the pie (as a centre piece, mockingly) and into the oven she went. Customers weren't watching, but a cute pair of freckles and a baseball capped bun saw the whole thing. Jennifer frowned disapprovingly at her boss, who winked with whimsy in response. So much whimsy had he that she giggled a little under her hand and then scolded him lovingly, "You're completely terrible, Jake!"

"Yo, Leo isn't back yet?" wondered Jake. "Fucken hope he's o-fucking-kay. Fucken samba fucker always drives crazy for the big tips. Drives me fucken crazy, all the calls I get about him."

[K-Zu-Ziro]

Cork City, Co. Cork. One night. It had snowed, melted and froze. And was snowing again. "An old woman told me to do it!" an English accent said to one of his three English friends. They had Irish friends too, but it just so happened that four English boys made friends working together in Ireland. There was no prejudice. Of course not. One of them often boasted about his Irish great grandparents. "Cool, dude." replied the second English guy. The first to speak was talking about socks pulled over his skinny Nikes. Since the Cork City government failed to salt the pavements properly, it was especially difficult to walk the streets at night after work. An elderly Irish lady had advised the first English boy to put socks over his shoes to avoid slipping on the way to work that morning. It worked like a charm. The third English boy smirked and said, "Well you look stupid." to the laughing approval from England No. 4. "So when's the big date with the sock woman?" number two always took the inappropriate shortcut for a cheap laugh.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

Nammie's split skinned fingers gripped the underside of the arm chair and flipped it, no problem. The chunky chair knocked over a tangled pothos plant and soil spilled all over the floor. Something dark brown, reddish orange in the light, skittered from where the chair had been and took refuge behind one of those popular cubey storage cabinets. "Urgh," Nammie grabbed his dirty left shoe and gave in to a primordial snarl. "Alright," he said, readying his hand on the cheap cherry wood veneer. "Argh!" his war cry gave him the strength to hulk the clunky furniture out of the way. Once clear he tossed his shoe at his fleeing enemy. A cockroach. It caught the wee beasty by one of its six legs. The leg detached and it began to move with significantly less speed. Nammie, blinded by anger at the alien's intrusion, stood over the doomed insect and swore, "Fuck you, fuck you. FUCK YOU" he slammed his shoe right on top of it and made a mess of its entire life; everything the roach had became less than nothing, it became a splattered inconvenience on a man's laminate flooring. Nammie felt bad, usually he hated killing anything. But he'd found this cockroach crawling on his BLT sandwich. Hunger and frustration derailed his empathy for all forms of life. He did always kill cockroaches, of course he did. They're not exactly easy to catch and release. But he apologised afterwards. To nobody in particular.

"What type of roach was it?" shouted Steph from the other room.

"Not a German one, one of those big ones. American cockroach, I guess."

"Ah, okay!" Steph was clearly relieved.

The distinction was important. German cockroaches signaled a disgusting home, filthy and infested. The American cockroach however, bigger and uglier, was much more benign. It sneaks into houses by accident, usually escaping the cold weather or making a wrong turn in your yard's leaf litter. They don't infest homes and have little or no reflection on the cleanliness of your dwelling.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

Ludovic tugged his sleeve to his cheek and pawed clumsily at his tears. Crying is supposedly a chemically proven remedy for the brain, a way of releasing grief. For him though, it seemed more like plunge, fathomless in depth. Depraved heartbreak fueled itself into spiraling hopelessness. His tragedy, what happened to his family, had fractured the bolt controlling his actions. Vic had tried to go out, but found himself bawling in the bathroom of his favourite coffee shop. Chewing the walls of his mouth provided a focus to divert the misery inwards, he was able to escape that situation. Since then, every night was a pizza night. The delivery lady was growing fond of the nightly routine!

Six nights later and the same delivery girl was climbing the steps of Ludovic's city apartment block, she was nattering to herself about how incredibly unprofessional it would be to say something. But all things considered, she wanted to say something. Vic's neighbours had clued her in a couple of nights earlier and he she could see he was lost at sea. Maybe she could be the anchor?

Vic opened the door and Adélaïde said, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité!" followed by a rosy flush of embarrassment. It was cheesy. No, worse, it was crass and insensitive. She instantly regretted her words. Were they empty? Would he be offended? Ludovic was confused at first, then his lip lowered and his were swollen with sorrow. He sucked in his lower lip, bit it and whimpered.

"Merci. Merci. Merci. Merci. Merci."

He repeated the word obsessively, more times than he would remember.